


drink to our glorious future

by lucrezias-sparklyhairnet (shedseventears)



Category: The Borgias
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Light Bondage, Sexual Assault, Sibling Incest, Torture, Violence, basically everything you saw on the borgias, better safe than sorry right, i don't even know what else will pop up, just consider yourself warned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shedseventears/pseuds/lucrezias-sparklyhairnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Borgias are at the height of their power.  And so they will draw blood wherever they must and devour their enemies smiling.  Post-season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drink to our glorious future

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my imagining of how season 4 would have gone. Okay, that's a lie. This is how season 4 maybe should have gone, as I have been quite vocal in my opinion that the "Borgia Apocalypse" idea of Rodrigo being unable to have anyone hear his confession and then he's in hell and POOF the end is one of the shittiest endings the show could have had. So I'm working in Jordan's universe and playing by Jordan's rules--that is, the Rules of Gratuitous Yet Fun Historical Inaccuracy--but... I'm not going to let it suck.
> 
> Thus, I take zero responsibility for historical inaccuracy or lackthereof and am in fact FLYING IN ITS FACE because hey. When in Rome, right?
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and I will update this as quickly as possible.

                “And would you tell me—to perhaps further add to my calculations—about what you dream, my lord?”

                “I do not.”

                “You do not… what—my lord?”

                The duke of Valentinois shifts in his great armchair, his legs splayed out and his head tilted back.  He examines the great chandelier tangling from the ceiling, chews at his lower lip in thought.  Though perhaps he isn’t thinking; nobody would be able to know, that face of his a mask.  A mask they say he only drops when standing over your dead corpse, looking into unseeing eyes.

               “I do not dream.”  And it’s funny; so funny, in fact, that the astrologer would laugh if he wasn’t quaking in place.  Il Valentino, a man of so many ambitions—not dreaming.

                What they say Valentino dreams of:

                The whole of Italy falling to his rule.

                A great crown upon his head and a sword in his grasp.

                Caterina Sforza’s pretty white neck, soaked red with blood.

                His sister crying out beneath him.

                And of course, his father in a great crypt; with all those papal resources sucked dry, what need would he have then of one more nuisance?

                Yet he claims to dream of nothing.

                “You have heard about me, have you not?”  His fingers tapped against the chair’s intricately carved arm; and he is the sort of man whose hands must be kept busy.  Though guards stand within and outside the room, the astrologer would guess that Valentino has a dagger up one sleeve, a garrote up the other.  Armor likely rests beneath his comfortable shirts.  “You’ve heard that I do not like those who keep me waiting.”

                Forli kept him waiting; and down she went.  Pesaro, too, has fallen.  Sforza lands that once made great lords tremble.  But he is not a great lord.  Some say that he is much more than that; a terrible creature that made a deal with the devil.  How else could one so young conquer so much?

                With his father’s great purse.  With a keen mind.  With men too afraid of him to deny his will.

                “My lord, I did not mean—“

                “I do not care for what you mean.”  Leaning forward, Borgia is a monster by firelight.  His teeth shine white and sharp in the shadows, his hair and beard unkempt.  Cesare Borgia has been absent the company of fine ladies like his mother and sister for a long time now, the courtly niceties turned to feral instinct.  “I care for what you do.”  He points a long finger at the scroll in the astrologer’s hand.  “The chart.  Let me see it.”

                “You will not—“  Remembering to whom he speaks, the astrologer bites his tongue. Tasting his own blood, he wonders if Valentino would have more.  “That is to say—“

                “I am not capable of interpreting it on my own.  That’s what you were going to say.”  Borgia beckons him closer.  “Do you think I do not know that?  Come now.  I wish to see my future.”

                The astrologer hesitates still, though he knows that such actions could very well cost him his life.  Or could they?  How much of Valentino is truth, and how much is legend spat from Rome?  Did he truly pitch his brother into the Tiber?  Does his sister so wait with loving arms? 

                He would not risk them being true.

                So upon the table the astrologer unfurls Cesare Borgia’s astrological chart.  His past, his present, his future: all are there.  And he’s heard that the duke has had his palm read by old crones, by his mother the courtesan. 

                “No one can be sure of the future, my lord.  Not even one such as myself.”

                Cesare Borgia laughs, low and rasping.  “Do you not think me aware of that?  Caterina Sforza was sure of future. Look to where she stands.  No more stalling.  I wish to see what you have drawn.  Tell me what this means.”

                So the astrologer tells him.  He coats each word with double meanings, so many different interpretations so that it might not sound so terrible.  He invokes the names of Caesar and Alexander, for he knows his master loves those men well.  (As much as he loves anyone.)

                Yet when the astrologer is finished, Cesare Borgia simply smiles; and oh, it is an angel’s smile, so beautiful is his face.  And he slams the astrologer’s face into the table, ‘til his teeth are broken and bloody.

XXX

Rome’s great whore wears black, for black is the widow’s color, and it shows the milk of her flesh to its best advantage.           

                Or she will.  At the moment Lucrezia Borgia soaks in her bath, surrounded by ladies who would watch the water slick over her skin, pretending to avert their eyes.  Pretending not to envy and lust over the gold of her hair, pretending not to look at the one thing that is utterly unavoidable.

                That hair is soaked in boiled cabbage roots, boxwood shavings, and ivory.  All the better to keep it that lovely yellow, perhaps not as natural as it was in her younger years.  So too is her pale skin falsified, a concoction of milk and pigeon dung rubbed into her pores.

                “Cecilia.”

                The youngest girl, perhaps a touch too enamored with her great mistress, rushes to dip low.  She looks not so different from the Lucrezia Borgia whose father took the Vatican.  “Your Grace.”

                “Tell me.”  Lucrezia takes the girl’s hand; rubs her fingers with a gentleness befitting a duchess.  “If you were a man, would you find me pleasing still?”  And her smile reminds Cecilia of a great wolf baring its fangs.  “Are my breasts as they were?”

                Cecilia wets her lips, averts her eyes from the roses of Lucrezia’s nipples—but then the Borgia woman snatches her chin, forces her gaze downward.  “Are they?”

                “They are greater, my lady.”  Her cheeks are hot, her lashes fluttering with each word.  And Lucrezia giggles, girlish though she is so clearly a woman.  “You are the very image of the Madonna.  There surely cannot be a single man who would not desire you.”

                Lucrezia has a sphinx’s smile, and though it soon fades as she gestures for the ladies to begin rinsing her hair.  “Yet no man must be desire me.  I am in mourning, or do you not remember?’

                And they push combs through her hair, Lucrezia sighs and they imagine that they won’t trade secrets.  That they don’t study the way she shifts in her bath and groans and presses her hands to the places where her belly twitches.  What do those little tremors, their frequency, mean?  Would one man sire a child that kicks harder than the offspring of another?

                “I mourn more deeply still,” she says, as if sensing their fixation.  “For each day I feel my husband’s child stir within me.  Though that is indeed a blessing from our Heavenly Father.”  As they work the last of the treatment out of Lucrezia’s hair, she places her hands on the sides of her great belly.  “I asked God for another son; and God has listened.  He is good to me.”

                These serving girls watched as, seven months ago, Lucrezia Borgia laid a kiss upon her husband’s crypt.  They watched as she stood between her father and brother, swathed in black as was Il Valentino.  She had toyed with her crucifix then, prayed the rosary for Alfonso d’Aragona’s soul.

                Some said that Cesare Borgia still wished to place her upon the Neapolitan throne, in some capacity.  To rule in his stead when he did take that state.  Her Neapolitan child—a Neapolitan boy, to be sure—will only further secure her claim.

                So perhaps God is very good to Lucrezia Borgia.

                Her dress may be black, but it is not plain.  They tighten the lacings around her milk-filled breasts ‘til they might spill out, adorn her with jewels and gold.  A wedding band is slipped onto her ring finger; and on another finger is that pearl ring she holds so dear. 

                “Do not,” she says when they begin to tuck her hair under its black netting.  “I am tired of keeping my hair bound.  No more veils.  Give me a braid.”

                “Yes, my lady.”

XXX

                The pope is very grand indeed, awaiting his son’s return.  On his left side stands Vanozza de Cattaneo, her face grave; on his right the most unhappy duchess, who, for all her black, does not look to mourn today.  She does not beam, her lips barely curved.  But with her hands folded at her blossoming womb, she is a shadowed Virgin Mary.

                “Are you pleased, Lucrezia?”  The pope, ornamented on his throne, reaches out to touch her chin.  Her face is fuller than it was before she grew big with child.  “Your brother—lord of Pesaro now, too.  Just as you were once its lady.”

                “I did not doubt him.”  Lucrezia glances sidelong at her mother; and very rarely these days does Vanozza meet her eyes.  “Anyone would be a fool to do so.  Don’t you agree, Father?”

                The pope merely hums, the low growl of a toothless lion.

                The streets are lined with those waiting for the Duke of Valentinois, waving branches and cheering his name.  Of course his great entourage begins first, a taste of what’s to come.  And the soldiers are so grandly outfitted that one might consider them kings, but oh, these are not among his most trusted.  Those he would keep secret.

                He sits upon his horse—the largest charger he could find; a creature that would make him tower even higher above all others—and he has remembered to wear black.  Of course he has.  But Cesare mourns nothing and no one.  His colors are a reminder to those who mourn still for strangers whose blood he spilled.

                Though the babe quickens in Lucrezia’s belly, turns beneath her flesh, her own heart does not race as it would have all those years ago.  Her brother looks to her and touches that sword in its sheath; but she is cool to his eye.

                Cesare dismounts and leaves his horse to quavering boys who can barely handle the animal itself, let alone its rider.  He bows to the pope—and he bows with more mockery than Lucrezia thought possible—before kissing his ring.  Just as he kissed that ring when he became cardinal; with the same harsh eyes, hatred now replaced with smug condescension.          

                He speaks loudly, as if their father is deaf and must need a great number of explanations and grand gestures to understand what he already knows.  Pesaro is theirs, and with Rimini.  Soon Faenza will follow, and oh how Cesare will smile to watch its pompous teenage lord fall with it.

                “I believe then we will have the Romagna, Father.”  _We._ As if the pope is a part of Cesare Borgia’s vision.

                “And then you will be its prince.”

                That smile turns to Lucrezia; and then she holds out her hand.  Cesare Borgia kisses her hand as he did the pope’s.  Yet his lips linger and his eyes travel across her straining bodice and flushed cheeks.  When he stands tall, his hand moves to that swollen belly, his mouth catches hers in a flush kiss.  Lucrezia’s lips part beneath his; and as they do, Vanozza and the pope avert their eyes.

                Italy is watching.  But they are Borgias, and they care not for their lessers.

XXX

                She is a fine prisoner, if not so fine as she was when she first arrived in Rome.

                The Tigress of Forli is worth more than a dingy cell; and even the pope would agree to that.  So she sits upon her bed and wears gowns that are now faded.  Is plucked and pulled by her ladies for a visit from their great lord, Il Valentino.

                While she has lost weight and grown old in this place—has been forced to look in the mirror and see that for all that they try to preserve her, her hair is falling out and her clothes are loose and there are wrinkles now where there weren’t before—Caterina Sforza is still more than any other woman.  And her jewels may not hang as they once did, but _he_ still looks upon with that hunger.

                It’s not the same sort of frenzy that drove him to take her when he was younger and more foolish.  The burning that lapped at his sister’s heels on that horrible wedding so long ago.  (Yes; yes, she saw the unholy siblings and their false laughter, the way they tore at one another without a touch.)                 

                No.  This has nothing to do with desire or any of the things that would pull a man to her bed.  He wishes only to chip away at her until she is nothing.  Less than that, really.  He would take away her fangs and claws and turn her into a housecat, a pet to take what the Borgias offer.

                “It’s been so long, my lord.”  She smiles, pats the place beside her; and she will not bow to him.  “I was beginning to worry you’d lost interest in me.”

                He leans against the wall, the room free of servants.  And when she first arrived in the Castel Sant’Angelo, he would slip in and wrap his hands around her neck, force her chin up so that she must look at him.  Her maids have spent dutiful hours covering bruises and split skin.  He would have her shed tears and beg for mercy.

                But she will not.  Not yet.

                “Have you heard of Pesaro?”  He asks.  “It lies with Forli now.”

                In his hands.  And she has heard rumors, as difficult as it has become to hear of anything happening beyond these walls.  They’ve grown fearful now, too afraid of him to traffic in knowledge.

                “Does it now?”  She nods complacently.  “And are you a great man now?  Worthy of your namesake?”  She lifts her head, puts on a mocking tone.  “Let us all raise our swords for our great  leader.  _Aut Caesar, aut nihil_!”

                And he smiles, slow and sharp.  He’s become quieter in these past months, hardened and scarred.  So he crossed the room before she may notice, strikes her across the face with his gloved hand.  But his gloves are reinforced now with small spikes that would rake across her flesh, scourging her once-beautiful cheeks. 

                He pins her to the bed, one hand around her throat, the other binding her wrists above her head.  Caterina lies still—for she should know better than to fight now—as his mouth covers hers, his lips purposefully biting hers ragged ‘til he might taste her blood.

                ‘Til her own mouth fills with that same blood.

                Cesare Borgia laughs as he rises off of her, backs away and wipes at his mouth with the same hand that struck her.  She spits red at him and misses, watches his back as he leaves the room.  He isn’t even afraid to turn his back on her anymore.

                That, of all things, is what makes Caterina believe she’s dead.

                “Watch her,” he tells his guards.  “I would not have our cat take her own life while I visit my sister.”

XXX

                Lucrezia drains a glass of something likely too strong for a woman in her condition.  Her fingernails drum against Cesare’s desk, and she struggles to pull her eyes from documents that hold yet more secrets she, as a woman, is not privy to and never will be.

                “Are you so superstitious now?”  She stretches out a hand, beckons him with teasing fingers.  “Come.  If you worry so much about your future, I shall read your palm as I did when we were but children.  And you, my lord, will see that all the world shall bow.  Will that calm you?”

                He’s stretched out across her bed.  Though his doublet is gone, his boots remain—likely because he’s hiding a knife there.  And somewhere else, surely.  Her brother goes nowhere without his hidden guards, hidden weapons, hidden poisons.  (The last courtesy of Lucrezia, on more than one grudging occasion.)

                “It’s not simply the astrologer, sis.”  And that he still calls her by such an endearment chills her to the bone.  “Men like me do not live long.”  As she opens her mouth in protest, he raises a hand.  “So we must live while we can.  I shall leave our family an empire.  I shall leave my _sons_ an empire.”

                Lucrezia sinks into her chair, a hand resting upon the mound of her belly.  “Do not think of leaving anyone anything, for you will not die for a long, long time.  You wouldn’t dare take a stranger’s word over mine, would you?”  Perhaps not when they were children.  But husbands have died and lovers have been taken.  “Tell me, brother: how should you have any heirs if you won’t visit your wife’s bed?  Louise is a girl.  If she inherits your title it will be to her husband’s benefit, not ours.”

                “I have sons,” Cesare says loftily, rising from Lucrezia’s bed.  He strides across the room, snatching that damned chart off his desk.  “I’ve even recognized a few of them.”  Pinching Lucrezia’s cheek, he admires the roses in her flesh. 

                “Bastard boys will not do for you as they did for Father.”  She absently presses her lips against his palm.  “We did not inherit.  We took.”

                His fingers travel to the swelling beneath her bodice, press against the taught drum of her muscles.  And here the child kicks until she winces, as if fighting away her brother’s dark presence.  “I have nephews, then.”

                “Giovanni is as illegitimate as any of your boys.”  She tilts her head back, looks up at him with something that could be construed as mockery.  “And Alfonso’s child may be a girl yet.”

                He does not flinch from her husband’s name, his hand squeezing tight around Lucrezia’s belly.  “You’ll have a son.  I said so about Giovanni, as well.”

                So he wills it, so shall it be.  “Mmm.  And if I remember correctly, you believed that Louise would be a boy, too.” Reaching up, she touches his chin.  “You’ve cast your fair share of girls.”

                “What does that matter?”   And the way his eyes light with ambition for a babe yet to draw breath makes her wish to throw aside their name.  “We’ll see what your Alfonso gives us.”

                And he would still laugh over her husband’s rotting corpse.

                “You’ve changed, sis.”        

                “Getting with child tends to do that to a woman.”

                But that is not what changed her; and they both know that this change began long before the child grew big.  Lucrezia is not the creature who was tired of her husband and tired of life.  She’s had a taste of a bloodstained world where her brother spends months away, killing those who might protest his chosen destiny.

                “I’ve missed you.”  And he draws her to her feet, kisses her neck.  Yet for all that Lucrezia’s heartbeat quickens, her mind darts to the bodies on the battlefield.  And as it always will when Cesare returns to Rome: her husband’s blank eyes, his gurgled pleas for death.  How a part of her dropped still with relief as she saw him, draped across the ground beside her brother’s blade.  “Sister.”

                He struggles with her ribbons and lacings as any man would, particularly a man more used to whores than Roman ladies after so long away.  (She does not flatter herself to think that Cesare’s bed lies empty in all those far-flung places.  Nor would she have it so.)  And he laughs when her breasts, heavy with milk, drop free of their bindings.

                “Tell me where I shall stand,” she says between sighs.  “When you can be who you want to be.”

                (For to hear the things that make this seem like less of what she wants and more of what she needs soothes the conscience.)

                “Above all others,” he murmurs into her stomach, licking and biting.  He pulls her to the bed, lays back so that she may sit astride.  And who else would have him this way?  “The first woman of Rome.”

                So as she feels him within her, feels him at her breasts, Lucrezia tells herself that it is not for pleasure.  Even as she cries out and trembles, she tells herself that it is for her sons that she takes her own blood still.  She shall be the first woman in Rome; and then the girl she lost shall be worth it.

                Lucrezia falls asleep with Cesare’s head resting against her belly, feeling the life that he will shape into his legacy.  And she tries not to smile at all those they will devour.


End file.
